Muhlenberg's 'Taffetas' visually exciting, musically satisfying

''The Taffetas,'' Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre's homage to the girl groups so popular in the 1950s, is perfect seasonal fare. Guest director David Caldwell has taken what could be a slight musical revue and dressed it up with a sleek, shining set, gorgeous lighting and an endearing cast of four singers. The result is charming, beguiling and delightfully nostalgic.

Brigitte Choura, Courtney Romano, Kara Senich and Lindsay Quinn play the Taffettas, small-town siblings with big dreams and ambitions. And it is their down-home friendliness, naivete and sincerity that make the show so appealing. It also helps that they are talented singers and create wonderful harmonies.

Through props, lighting effects and varied tempos, Caldwell infuses each musical number with enough variety to make the show zip by. The girls solo, sing duets, sing along with bells and break into snappy dance steps. They use props — hats, umbrellas, telephones, flashing sparkling colored lights and the largest Kleenex box I have ever seen. Most importantly, they become unique personalities. Romano plays Kaye the oldest sister and leader of the group. Choura plays Peggy, the youngest. Quinn is Donna, the boy crazy flirt, and Senich is Cheryl, the awkward, self-conscious sister.

From the opening moments when the girls flounce on stage in pastel-colored party dresses, specially created for the show by costumer Mildred Greene, and burst into ''Sh-boom,'' they ingratiate themselves with the audience.

Caldwell has directed with attention to detail, and despite the absence of anything but the slimmest plot line, the production is visually exciting, going from one number to the next with style and grace.

The show includes such '50s faves as ''Mr. Sandman,'' ''Mockin' Bird Hill,'' ''Tonight You Belong to Me,'' ''Ricochet Romance,'' ''The Tennessee Waltz'' and ''How Much is that Doggie in the Window?''

But don't think of ''The Taffetas'' as a show of oldies for oldies. There is enough fluffy fun to make it a winner for any age group.

Michael McDonald designed the costumes, Edgar DuPont the art-deco jukebox set. Vincent Trovato, Richard Groller and Steve Wright provide the musical accompaniment. Dennis Parichy created the romantic lighting and Will Porter the peppy vintage stylized choreography.

Muhlenberg's lush 'Carousel' delights the eye and stirs emotions

There is only word to describe Muhlenberg Summer Theatre's production of ''Carousel,'' and that is ''sumptuous.''

Director Charles Richter's interpretation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic is lush, romantic and so gorgeous that it makes the love story of Billy Bigelow, the angry, ineffectual carousel barker, and Julie Jordan, the idealistic and naive young dreamer, even more stirring and emotionally draining.

Richter begins the story slowly. As we peer through a delicate gauze curtain and shimmering scrims, we see Julie watch in awe as the circus characters perform a sensuous opening ballet. As the story continues, the gauze drapery becomes a constant visual reminder of the contrast between Billy's reality and Julie's dream world.

Richter has assembled a cast with superb voices that soar and thrill the audiences with some of Rodgers' best and most moving songs.

Steve Molloy is a perfect Billy Bigelow — angry, arrogant, ineffectual and needy. His solos are so moving, so soulful and so truthful that they sear the heart. Sarah Hutchinson, who plays Julie, looks like a delicate porcelain doll, but this fragile beauty belies Julie's inner strength. Hutchinson's portrayal makes the audience understand the power of love to blind us from the truth.

Sarah Primmer is an engaging and beguiling Carrie. Primmer has a wonderful voice and a delightfully perky and ingratiating manner. Jessica Damrow's Nettie is like a loud explosion of song. Her solo of ''June is Bustin' Out All Over'' is one of the many special musical moments.

Joel Frank is a pompous, smug Enoch Snow, and it wonderful to see Bob Fahringer (Jigger) and Neil Hever (the Star Keeper) back on stage. And, finally, Courtney Romano's Louise is touching and her ballet on the beach is mesmerizing for its grace and fluidity. Romano makes us cry for this lonely young girl.

Set designer Curtis Dretsch has resisted the tug of realism, and with quick suggestive strokes, has created magical illusions. His carousel is made up of dancers carrying carousel horses on poles. His sets are his most beautiful and lyrical designs to date. He recreates a New England fishing village, its piers and a beach with an inventive shorthand. These minimalist drapes, backdrops and props, along with Dennis Parichy's lovely subdued palette of rosy pinks, cheery optimistic yellows and evocative ice blue lights, create what can only be described as an impressionistic vision.

Costume designer Campbell Baird has used a dreamy palette of colors to create dazzling designs. He uses soft pastels for the innocents of the play, and hard, strident reds, maroons and blacks for the world-weary cynics.

Julie is a vision of pink and white. Carrie is an earthy spring green, and Billy, Mrs. Mullins and Jigger are all dressed in less forgiving shades.

But ''Carousel'' is, above all, a dance musical, and Baird's clothes dance and flow with such grace that they enhance the dancers' movements. The movement of the skirts brings to mind spring flowers ready to burst open.

Which brings us to Karen Dearborn's choreography. It is not easy to evoke the spirit and feel of the great Agnes de Mille, but Dearborn's dancers achieve this effect almost effortlessly. Her male dancers in particular are graceful. And Rodgers' music is performed beautifully under Vincent Trovato's baton.

It is a joy to hear the music reinforce the dance, stopping and starting in synchrony with the dancers. This production is a salute to Muhlenberg's theater department and Richter, a harvest of his many years of training and inspiring actors, singers and dancers.

''Carousel,'' 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, Family Night show 8 p.m., July 23; through July 30, Muhlenberg College, Baker Center for the Arts, Empie Theatre, 2400 Chew St., Allentown. Tickets: $32, $28, seniors 65 and older, $17, under 17. 484-664-333 or www. summerbroadway.org.

Myra Yellin Outwater is a freelance writer.

A stitch or two in time: Costumer's touch animates atmosphere in 'Carousel'

''A costume designer has to be a psychologist and a psychiatrist because you're always trying to make performers comfortable,'' says Campbell Baird. ''If you make them comfortable, they'll come around 180 degrees to make that costume work. If they don't wear it well, it will look like the worst thing from Kmart.''

Baird has been a fashion therapist for the Joffrey Ballet, the Minneapolis Children's Theatre Company and many other major companies that have anything but Kmart budgets. He's currently counseling the costume shop of the Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre festival, which opens Wednesday with ''Carousel,'' Rodgers and Hammerstein's haunting tale of fun, love, lust, vanity, neglect, desperation, death, resurrection, bittersweet redemption and the idea that life is a merry, and not so merry, go-round.

Baird is in charge of more than 150 costumes covering 1873 to 1888 in a New England fishing village. He's outfitting 44 performers who play a kaleidoscope of characters: carnival operators and visitors, mill workers and whalers, clam bakers and treasure hunters. His toothy textures and popping colors animate a production that's far more subdued than Muhlenberg's splashy 1989 version of ''Carousel.'' One of his biggest challenges is showcasing the show's most demanding addition: the classical/contemporary ballet of original choreographer Agnes de Mille, a frequent collaborator of Baird's mentor Oliver Smith, the legendary scenic designer who won eight Tony awards.

Baird is in Allentown through the intervention of a Muhlenberg graduate he teaches at New York University's department of design for stage and film. The native of Wilmington, N.C., is working on ''Carousel'' because he admires the memorable songs (''Soliloquy,'' ''You'll Never Walk Alone''), the radically mercurial blend of fantasy and tragedy (''It's always interesting when you have a musical where people die''), even the beach setting (he grew up spending summers at his grandparents' home on the North Carolina coast). He jumped at the chance to design his first ''Carousel'' after designing the musical's inspiration, Ferenc Molnar's drama ''Liliom,'' and three productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's ''South Pacific,'' including one for the New York City Opera. Finally, he couldn't resist a summer job with a collegial team an easy drive from his second home in Phillipsburg, N.J., which he shares with his partner, John McKernon, a lighting designer and a fellow NYU teacher.

Baird recently dissected his design process for ''Carousel.'' The tour began at a bulletin board covered in clippings of 19th-century paintings of New England scenes. Without consulting one another, Baird and Curtis Dretsch, the festival's charter scenic designer, decided to adapt Winslow Homer's impressionistic, mystical pictures of sailors, farmers and frolicking kids.

''It's a sort of benign view of the world,'' says Baird. ''I have a strong connection to things we lose track of. We forget the world that existed. You look at Homer's boys with their straw hats and their suspenders and you say: 'Wow — that was a childhood!' We can't go back to childhood, but we can understand better how they got there.''

Dretsch filters Homer's idyllic, slightly alien world with gauzy curtains, fuzzy edges, a broad palette of beige, green and gray. His beachy scheme, easily his most monochromatic at Muhlenberg, is one of many elements that makes this ''Carousel'' 270 degrees different from the 1989 production. Two decades ago Dretsch designed a full-size carousel. This time around there's no merry-go-round, only dancers who carry sculptural versions of carousel horses.

''The other production was very realistic, very physicalized, very tangible,'' says Dretsch. ''And this one is exactly the opposite. It wants to be as ephemeral as can be.''

Dretsch has essentially created a canvas for Baird to paint. He's especially florid in the opening carousel scene, which features deeply layered, sparkling gypsy and Chinese ensembles. According to Dretsch, Baird's colors pop out like the memories of characters pop out.

Like any costumer, Baird uses color to accent character. He initially considered using blue for Julie Jordan Bigelow, the idealistic knitting-mill worker and hard-luck wife of Billy Bigelow, the charming, abusive carnival barker. Deciding that blue was too strong, too independent, he chose pink because it conveys her femininity, looks good on actress Sarah Hutchison and provides a strong contrast to the green worn by Carrie Pipperidge, Julie's fellow worker, best friend and an evergreen optimist. A dreamy color, it accentuates the Muhlenberg team's concept that ''Carousel'' is essentially Julie's dream.

Billy's clothes exemplify how Baird blends history, psychology and comfort. Actor Stephen Molloy wears a plaid vest and plaid corduroy pants to emphasize that Billy is a rakish cad. His vest has laced tabs across the back, a sort of late 19th-century male corset. Three different sailor shirts change the tone of Billy's three major scenes: when he romances Julie at the amusement park; dies while robbing a store to raise money for his unborn child, and returns to Earth to atone for his sins by relieving his daughter's loneliness.

The three shirts are practical as well as symbolic. They allow Molloy to change his dirty clothing — an important bonus, since he rarely leaves the stage and sweats up a storm. As Baird knows, a drier performer is a happier, more effective performer.

Actors invent motivations and back stories to make their characters make more sense. Ditto designers. Baird, a former actor, imagines that Mrs. Mullin, the carnival owner, gives Billy her husband's hand-me-down clothes as a way of keeping the professional rover on the payroll and under her thumb. Despite the second-hand duds, Bigelow always manages to look fairly spiffy. ''There's not a girl on the beach,'' says Baird, ''who wouldn't sew a button on for Billy.''

Baird's toughest task may be designing costumes that showcase Agnes de Mille's choreography for the original 1945 production. Her intricate partnerships are driven by classical and contemporary ballet moves that demand outfits that are flexible and inflexible. As choreographer Karen Dearborn points out, male dancers need to lift women with a waist that's tight and easy to grip.

In some cases Baird sacrificed authenticity for aesthetics. After consulting with Dearborn, he raised the hems on the dancers' skirts, even though 19th-century women wouldn't have worn their dresses so high. It was simply more important to spotlight their fancy footwork during a de Mille hornpipe.

''While some designers fixate on authenticity, Campbell is sensitive and attentive to the needs of the entire production,'' says Dearborn in an e-mail. ''He designs so that both the dances and the costumes look fabulous.''

Baird has spent most of his life making fabric dance. He received early advice in sewing from a grandmother who taught ballroom dancing with her husband, whom she met while ballroom dancing in Wrightsville Beach, N.C. ''I never asked her enough questions,'' he says. ''You never learn when you should. I feel a bit like Billy — if only.''

Baird was further tutored by his dancing mother. In high school he co-wrote and directed three musicals. He was still in high school when he began seven years of summer stock for the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Building seven one-week musicals (''Camelot,'' ''Irma la Douce'') per season was invaluable preparation for a career in the cauldron of ballet, opera and Broadway. One of his best discoveries was that he designed much better than he acted.

Baird was introduced to de Mille's choreography while assisting his first design mentor on a production of ''A Rose for Miss Emily'' at his alma mater, the North Carolina School of the Arts. He met his second design mentor, Oliver Smith, in graduate school at NYU.

At the time Smith (1918-1994) was in his fourth decade as a scenic wizard. He had helped make dance history by designing the 1942 Ballet Busse de Monte Carlo premiere of de Mille's ''Rodeo'' and the 1944 American Ballet Theatre debut of ''Fancy Free,'' with choreography by Jerome Robbins and music by Leonard Bernstein. While serving as ABT's co-director, he collaborated on the film version of '' Oklahoma!,'' the original stage productions of ''Brigadoon'' and ''My Fair Lady'' and the Metropolitan Opera's ''La Traviata.'' In 1958 he received a scenic-design Tony award for the original ''West Side Story,'' beating his own nomination for a revival of ''Carousel.''

Baird recalls Smith as a kind taskmaster. He would soften a blistering critique with the shrugging comment: ''Of course, that's just my two cents.'' Smith liked Baird enough to make him his principal assistant. Over 11 packed years they designed for the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden and La Scala, premiered ''Jerome Robbins' Broadway'' and redecorated theaters owned by the Schubert Organization. Their partnership began with a ''Night of the Iguana'' starring Michael Moriarty and ended with Smith's very last show, de Mille's ''Fall River Legend.''

Smith taught Baird m uch more than professional design; he taught him how to act as a professional designer. Many of his tips involved survival, both financial and emotional. ''He said: 'Make sure you get paid. Do everything you can possibly do for the show, then run for the train.' During rehearsals, a million opinions would be flying everywhere and I would start up the aisle with a prop. Oliver would grab me by the arm and say: 'Sit down. If they need you, they'll call for you.'''

Smith's most important lesson was, whenever possible, argue in private. ''The whole thing in the theater is knowing when to say what,'' says Baird. ''I'm still trying to learn that; that's a tough one.''

Baird has followed Smith's path as a busy, boundary-crossing rover. He's painted scenery for Metropolitan Opera productions and the film ''Malcolm X.'' He's launched a ''Peter Pan'' for the Minneapolis Children's Theatre Company and a play about Tolstoy's wife starring Julie Harris. He's designed the Joffrey Ballet's ''Billy the Kid'' and the Fort Worth Dallas Ballet's ''Nutcracker.'' To save time and money, he borrowed 20 costumes from the latter production for ''Carousel.''

Like Smith, Baird mixes disciplines in his courses at NYU. He splices all sorts of wires in ''Connections,'' a class on the history of film and theater. He spends five weeks on ''Romeo and Juliet'' and surveys the nearly 80 films that have featured the Titanic. One of his favorite Titanic movies is a piece of pre-World War I propaganda insisting the mighty ship wouldn't have sunk if it had been staffed by Germans.

Goeff Gehman of THE MORNING CALL, Allentown, PA

Casting, staging, pacing make 'You're Perfect' perfect fun

If you are married, you will love “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,” the irreverent musical romp about marriage and dating now being presented by Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre. 

But you will love it, too, if you are unmarried, a serial dater, a newlywed, a senior, a new parent, an old parent, or friends and relatives of all the above.

While at times it is bawdy, with references to sex, body parts and an occasional four-letter word, it is always good-natured fun, never offensive.  Its humor hits home again and again with wit and innocence.

Andy Gale, who directed the original Off-Broadway production and productions in other cities, has given the Muhlenberg show a sparkling effervescence.  Gale’s deft hand is evident in the casting, as well as in the precise pacing and the engaging staging, enlivened by physical comedy, unexpected gestures, delightful body language and peppy interactions among the cast.

The action, at times, is as fast-paced as the delightful musical score, which is played with polish and skill by violinist Inna Eyzerovich and pianist Vince DiMura. The plot revolves around the daily skirmishes between the sexes and the foibles of people in love, and full of sophisticated and often complicated wit.

Gale has paired two New York Equity actors – Brain Cooper and Jean Arbeiter – with two Muhlenberg students – junior theatre major Kennedy Kanagawa and recent graduate Carly Friedlander – and it is hard to tell who is Equity and who is not.

The four are so well matched and appear to play all their roles – 60 characters – effortlessly.

Not only does the cast sing, dance, and act, but they also must change personalities and physical postures.  They do this while changing costumes, dancing to the engaging and hip musical score, and singing lyrics that range from the flippant to the cynical to the sarcastic to the incisive to often touching and sincere.

There are too many highlights to mention, but among the best are Kanagawa doubling over with fear as a man “scared straight” into marriage by Cooper, who plays a glum, hardened criminal.

Later, Kanagawa cowers and struts as he plays both a nerdy wimp and a muscle-bound stud in “A Stud and a Babe,” the wonderful duet with Friedlander, who vamps as a would-be Babe and then collapses into insecurity as the girl no one wants to date.

But it is as the recently divorced middle-aged Rose Ritz, making her first dating video, that Friedlander shines with her honest and touching portrait.

Arbeiter strikes the audience’s funny bone first with a one-legged bladder ballet in the song “Waiting Trio.”  She does it again as a bridesmaid, encased in the most awful garish pink-and-green festooned dress, in “Always a Bridesmaid,” and then again as the manic, sex-starved wife in “Marriage Tango,” with an equally repressed Kanagawa.

Cooper is delightfully over-the-top as a Tear Jerk, who woos his girl by crying at a chick movie, and then is even more winning as a new father checking out a new teddy bear for his newborn son. Friedlander and Cooper also delight as the disappointed parents in “Hey There, Single Guy.”

“You’re Perfect,” is laugh-out-loud funny, and judging from the audience’s enthusiastic and constant loud laughter, it is no wonder the show has become the longest-running musical review in Off-Broadway history.

Myra Yellin Outwater is a freelance writer.
Jodi Duckett, Arts and Entertainment Editor, THE MORNING CALL, Allentown, PA

'Miss Nelson' scores a touchdown

Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre has another crowd-pleaser with the return of the perennially popular Miss Nelson to its children's offerings.

Based on Henry Allards's 1985 book, "Miss Nelson Has a Field Day" is a lively, engaging, interactive show, full of humor and with the expected moral for children- work hard, and you'll succeed.

The tuneful musical adaptation is by Joan Cushing, who is best known for her satirical revue, "Mrs. Foggybottom & Friends!," which ran for 10 years in New York City. Cushing also adapted "Miss Nelson is Missing!," which had a very successful run at Muhlenberg in 2004 and for which Cushing won the 2003 National Children's Theatre Festival Award.

Director Jon Reimer keeps the songs and action snappy in the simple, but inspiring story. The sad-sack third grade football team at Horace B. Smedley School is dead last and apathetic team members would rather goof off than practice drills. As their frazzled coach is ready to have a meltdown, Miss Nelson decides to bring back the mysterious Viola Swamp to whip the team into shape and, of course, win the big game.

As the loveable Miss Nelson, Liz Wasser is sweet but uninspiring. However, she goes from bland to bluster when she transforms into Miss Nelson's alter ego, Viola Swamp- the "meanest substitute teacher in the world." Wasser, sporting fright hair and an ever-present whistle, chews the scenery with gusto as she exhorts the team to give "More! More! More!"

J. Eric Stephenson, in the dual role of Coach Armstrong and the clueless Principal Blandsworth, gets his chance to shine in "Calypso Holiday" in which Miss Nelson and Craig Hanson, hilariously crossdressed as Mabel the cafeteria lady, convince the coach to take a much-needed vacation, clearing the way for the appearance of the dreaded Miss Swamp.

Bubbly Rachel Pereira is a standout as Lauren, the determinedly upbeat cheerleader. Her clear, strong voice is an asset in ensemble numbers such as "Imagine" and "The Legend of Viola Swamp" and anchors the grimly optimistic "Smedley Fight Song." Pereira also shines as she gets the audience engaged prior to the hourlong show by teaching two call-and-response cheers.

The students/football team is ably played by Muhlenberg students Hanson, Zach Chiero and Brittany Beatty, who interact like typical third-graders, with namecalling, spitballs and teasing.

Choreographer Kennedy Kanagawa has made creative use of the small space in the studio theater as the players progress from constantly colliding and tripping over each other's feet to the slow-motion ballet finale that showcases the team's new-found football finesse.

Brian Slocum has designed an innovative but simple set that uses an AstroTurf football field and goalpost as its base, but quickly transforms into a classroom and ice cream parlor. During the song, "The History Lesson," four school desks and chairs are artfully used to recreate Christopher Columbus' ship, the Wright Brothers' plane and Harriet Tubman's underground railroad.

Myra Yellin Outwater is a freelance writer.
Jodi Duckett, Arts and Entertainment Editor, THE MORNING CALL, Allentown, PA

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